Since I wasn't following a pattern, and I was increasing at will (which is not as random as I would have liked it to be) it doesn't exactly lay flat. BUT, it does resemble a circle, which is entirely the point on a first go. Catherine was a fabulous teacher and showed me how to begin the circle. Very excited. I can see more crochet in my future!The second thing I have to share is the starting of my Luna Moth Shawl! (This picture gives a better idea of the pattern, but in a different yarn).
You probably do not recall, but I posted a while back professing my love for this particular shawl (in the Callista yarn color pictured and everything) to go with my espresso colored strapless dress for my cousin's wedding in August. In this post I also asked everyone's opinion on knitting this pattern and whether it would be too much for me, or too difficult. Well, no one commented. So I took that to mean that it was manageable. Then, a month later when I was ready to start, I took the pattern to our Monday night Stitch and Bitch and asked some questions to clarify the pattern. Some of the ladies tried to give me a good dose of reality considering the trickyness of lace patterns and my time deadline. I dont like to hear reality if its discouraging. And who would?
Being the obstinate chicky that I am, I decided to just go for it.
Also, those words of discouragement actually had the opposite effect: I'm even more determined to knit it now than I was before. This commonly happens with me, if someone tells me I cant do something, and I think I can do it, well then I'm super motivated to prove them wrong.
Since the pattern called for a crochet provisional cast on, after the mini crochet lesson on Monday all I needed was some quiet time to begin. The pattern is actually knit as increasing semi-circles so you have to start by turning your stitches into a semi-circle. I'm not very good at reading a pattern and envisioning it in my head so I wasn't exactly sure that what I was doing was correct, but once I started knitting it it became clear to me. It actually took me 3 tries before I got it right and could start the actual pattern work (I kept losing my stitches when I would unzip the provisional cast on -- my fix for this was to put the needle through the stitches and then unzip -- took more maneuvering of the yarn, but it was only 3 stitches so it wasn't that bad). But it could have been worse.
You can see the fruit of my labors in the picture below. Pretty nice eh? (:{ Notice the wonderful lifeline, and the nice arch of the semi-circle.
The only complaint I have so far is that I've already run into some yarn yuckyness and had to cut it out and re-attach the yarn. I really hate when that happens. I see a complaint letter to elann.com in my future. But other than that, so far, so good.
And I'll be sure not to make the same mistake I made with my first attempt at lace work: I will not bring it to Stitch and Bitch. Lest I get to talking and mess up all my beautiful stitches. This is strictly a quiet me time knitting project due to the concentration I want to give it. And yes, because of this I may not finish by the wedding, but I will finish. (:{
1 comment:
So, is that the whole bar of yarn in your little crochet circle? ;)
And the shawl looks great so far, nice use of lifeline. :D
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